The Wild Child Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

The Wild Child Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 28, 2026

The Wild Child for all its undeniable visceral emotional impact is only a snippet of a rather tragic life experienced by one Victor of Aveyron, portrayed so memorably in this film by Jean-Pierre Cargol. One of the fascinating things about Cargol's performance, and one which perhaps presaged and maybe even helped to spark some contemporary re-evaluations of what the historical Victor may have been like, is how Victor as portrayed by Cargol might be deemed to be "on the spectrum", whatever other troubling things may have happened to him. And in fact some have postulated that any autistic or spectrum adjacent behaviors by the young boy may have well contributed to him being abandoned in a forest to begin with. In any case, The Wild Child offers a generally rather historically accurate accounting of the discovery of Victor as a pre- teen feral being living in the woods, and the subsequent efforts of Dr. Jean Itard (François Truffaut himself) to "civilize" the child.

There's an undeniable melancholy suffusing this film, where the famous dialectic of "nature vs. nurture" becomes almost irrelevant in the face of a young human left to fend for himself in the wild evidently from a very young age (some historical reports seem to indicate that the real life Victor had been spotted in the forest for years before his eventual "capture"). And in fact the quotes around capture in that parenthetical comment should arguably not even be there, since part of the subtext of the film is that Victor is in fact a wild and free being suddenly being forced into rigorous conformity. This is an inherently compelling story and Truffaut tells it without any structural artifices and with a fine attention to nuanced performances.

The Wild Child Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Wild Child is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. Radiance sent a check disc for purposes of this review, and so I'm not privy to any verbiage their insert booklet might contain, but their website offers only a generic "high definition digital transfer" as it sole technical description. The lack of more information may be a little troubling for some, but the good news is this presentation is quite striking, with really nicely modulated gray scale and some especially appealing blacks. There are some minor contrast fluctuations that can be spotted, probably especially in some of the heavily wooded material, and there are also some intermittent though minor signs of age related wear and tear, including some vertical scratches and other small blemishes. Truffaut tends to frame a lot of the story in midrange and wider perspectives, both of which can inherently tend to tamp down fine detail levels at times. Grain resolves naturally.

The Wild Child Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Wild Child features an LPCM Mono track in the original French. A lot of the outdoor material has appealing ambient environmental sound effects, and there's also some charming (and more or less historically appropriate) use of Vivaldi's music that help to keep the sound design vibrant. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Wild Child Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• François Truffaut (HD; 3:43) is offered in this archival French television interview conducted on the set of the film. Interestingly if tangentially, this brief piece is in color with a look at some of the forest in all its glory. Subtitled in English.


• François Truffaut and Lucien Malson (HD; 9:49) are offered in an archival television piece from 1969. Subtitled in English.


• Ginette Vincendeau (HD; 18:51) is an interesting overview of the film and François Truffaut by the critic and author.


• Trailer (HD; 1:30)

Radiance provided a check disc for purposes of this review, but their website details their typical assortment of packaging options, including an insert booklet and Obi strip.

The Wild Child Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As the interesting supplement with Ginette Vincendeau gets into, it's maybe just a little funny given the perspective of hindsight to realize that Mississippi Mermaid was supposed to be the big Truffaut hit of this general time frame, and that The Wild Child was just kind of a more personal project for the famed auteur, and was really not expected to generate much interest at the box office. Of course, just the opposite ended up happening, and it's really not hard to understand why. Mississippi Mermaid, for all its star power and high gloss ambience, is kind of emotionally flat and never all that compelling. The Wild Child, kind of like its feral subject, just basically reaches out and grabs the viewer by the throat (and/or heart) and rarely lets go. This release offers generally solid technical merits and some appealing supplements. Highly recommended.